Oliver was out there somewhere. As Josie forced her feet to walk into the centre of the stage behind the welcome protection of the velvet curtain, her stomach was doing cartwheels. What if she let him down now? Dried on stage and forgot her words? Or what if they didn’t like her? What if . . . And then she caught the panic that was constricting her throat, taking several deep long breaths as Madame Belloc had taught her. ‘We never have the agitation, little one.’ She could almost hear the small Frenchwoman’s firm bell-like tones. ‘We are professionals, the crème de la crème, non? And so we breathe, we breathe, we breathe, and then we sing. Like the nightingale, yes? Like the nightingale, we sing.’
And she
could
sing. She could do this. Compared to some of what she’d gone through - the early years when she’d no shoes to her feet and no food in her belly; the endless nightmarish days at the laundry under Prudence’s persecution; the attack on her person by Patrick Duffy and her da; and then her da and the lads disappearing; and, worst of all, her mam dying . . . compared to all that, this was nothing. That’s how she had to view it.
She heard Alistair, the chairman, finish his spiel and the signature tune they had agreed on for her presentation begin to play, and she knew the curtains would swing back any moment as Edgar, the assistant stage manager, began to work the rope and pulley. They were going to like her; she would
make
them like her. They were just people, weren’t they, the same as in the pubs and music halls back home. If she made it big time, it would mean more money than she’d ever dreamed of; she’d heard some of the other performers talk, she knew what the stars of the music hall earned. And she wouldn’t waste a penny, not a single penny. They could find Hubert again and she’d buy them all a place to live - a place of their own where no one could come along and throw them out on to the streets. She could buy safety for herself and what was left of her family.
She just had time to glance at Nellie in the wings who smiled and gave her a vigorous thumbs-up as the curtains glided apart with a faint squeak from the machinery, and then an ocean of faces was in front of her beyond the footlights.
Josie walked gracefully forward, smiling and bobbing her head towards Alistair - a splendid figure in his white tie and tails - who banged his gavel with white-gloved hands and called out her name in ringing, fruity tones as she took her position on stage. This was it. This was what she had trained for so singlemindedly in the last couple of months and worked towards for the last few years. This was her chance and she was going to grasp it with open hands. Suddenly all the nervousness was gone.
She had had an introduction line which Oliver had thought out, but now the moment had come, Josie knew she had to speak for herself; say what was in her heart. ‘Thank you so much for being here today and letting me sing to you. I was nervous a moment ago but now, looking at you all, you don’t look so bad.’ A wave of appreciative laughter swept round the theatre and a few loungers sat up in their seats. ‘I’ve always wanted to sing, even as a small child, so this is a dream come true. I’d like to start by singing “Masks and Faces”, a song Jenny Hill made famous and which some of you might know, followed by “One Last Sweet Kiss”.’
There was more perfunctory applause and Oliver, sitting tucked away at the side of the theatre where he could gauge the audience’s reaction and hear comments, found himself straining forward in his seat, his palms damp. Damn it all but she was lovely, more than lovely. And the lighting was just right. It made her appear so fragile, elusive, but when she opened her mouth and let that magnificent voice soar . . . He breathed deeply and then, as the first notes sounded, relaxed back in his seat, his eyes never leaving the silver and gold figure on the stage.
And it wasn’t until some ten minutes later, when an explosion of thunderous applause rocked the theatre, that Oliver came to himself and realised that far from noticing the crowd’s reaction he had been blind and deaf to anything but the slim, ethereal woman singing so effortlessly in front of him. She was exquisite. He glanced about him now, seeing entranced faces wherever he looked. And they all knew it. Hark at them - they loved her. They were calling for more in a way he hadn’t heard for years. She had them in the palm of her tiny hand.
Josie was laughing and curtsying on the stage but she had to sing another song before the audience would let her go and, mindful of Oliver’s instruction to leave them happy, she flirted her way through ‘The Farm Boy and the Milkmaid’ before waving one last time and running lightly into the wings, there to be embraced by a delighted Nellie. ‘I told you, didn’t I!’ her friend exclaimed when she stood back a pace and looked into Josie’s bright face. ‘They’ll want to retain you here, so mind your agent bumps up your fee.’
‘Oh, Nellie.’ Josie was brimming over with excitement. ‘I can’t believe it!’
‘Believe it and enjoy it, gal.’ Nellie grinned, not a trace of jealousy in her voice as she added, ‘You’ll go far, Josie Burns, you mark my words. Nellie Wood knows a good thing when she sees it.’ And then, as Alistair finished his preamble, she grinned again, saying, ‘And now for something completely different. I think after all that purity and good taste they’re ready for “And Her Golden Hair was Hanging Down Her Back”, don’t you?’
The curtain was already swinging back and now Nellie swaggered on to the stage, the long feathers in her sparkling headband wafting about her auburn hair. Josie waited in the wings. She had heard Nellie sing this song in rehearsals, and no one got the mix of sauciness and wide-eyed appeal so right as Nellie, especially bearing in mind the naked child that appeared in the latest advertisements for Pears soap. Nellie was a natural comedian and this song was perfect for her.
Nellie turned and winked at her before she announced the title of the song which met with a roar of approval from the crowd, and then she began to sing all about the country maiden who came down to London for a trip and was enticed by the bright lights.
Nellie had everyone singing lustily in the chorus, but knowing what was coming, Josie herself was laughing so much she was quite unable to join in. Nellie was thoroughly enjoying the reaction of the audience and sang with relish the cheekiest of the verses, in which the young innocent was persuaded to pose beside a marble bath upon some marble stairs in the manner of the Pears soap advertisement, with just her golden hair hanging down her back, and with Nellie’s gesturing and outrageous innuendo the audience were howling with laughter.
There was more along the same lines but knowing Gertie would be waiting for her, Josie slipped away, intending to make her way back to the dressing room.
She felt as though she was floating as she walked down the wooden steps from the stage area, and when one or two of the other artistes who had come into the wings to watch her first performance called out their congratulations, she thanked them breathlessly with sparkling eyes.
Josie had just reached the corridor leading to the bowels of the theatre, when a voice calling her name brought her turning, and then Oliver was there in front of her, his hands coming out swiftly and catching hers as he said, ‘You were wonderful, magnificent, as I knew you would be.’
It was more the look on his face than what he’d said which caused Josie to blink rapidly before she answered, ‘Thank you. I’m glad you’re pleased.’
‘Pleased?’ He shook his head slightly. ‘Pleased does not begin to describe what I felt out there.’ He stared at her, part of him - the Hogarth part, the part which had been brought up as a gentleman, his every need catered for to the point where he had never even dressed himself before he had been so rudely cast adrift at the age of twenty - protesting that this was madness.
As his mistress, Josie would be welcomed, or perhaps the word was ‘patronised’, by his friends, who would even then wonder why he had replaced Stella with a mistress of less . . . lofty pedigree. But they would accept her as a mistress since most men, even the Prince of Wales himself, indulged in affairs with ladies from the world of the theatre. But although his friends would talk behind their lace cuffs and snigger a little, it would be their lady wives who would cut her apart with their tongues, should he present her as his future wife. No matter that the majority of them hopped from bed to bed with scant regard for discretion, nor that a good proportion had children fathered by the current lover rather than their husband, they mated within their class, that was the thing, and so they were still ladies. Josie had more natural dignity and poise than the lot of them put together, but they wouldn’t see it like that. Or rather, they might see it, and that would make them even more cruel.
But Josie would consider nothing less than marriage.
Even to suggest anything else would mean he might lose her for good.
He loved her.
He had loved her from the minute he had seen her on that stage in Hartlepool - before that, even; he had loved her from the beginning of time without recognising who or where she was, but until he had met her his whole life had been a period of waiting. If he lost her, if he let someone else snatch the prize from under his nose . . .
‘Josie?’ He still had hold of her hands but now he moved a fraction closer, taking encouragement from the fact that she did not immediately pull away. ‘I have to ask you something and you may well think I am being presumptuous, but I know you will give me an honest answer. Do you think you could ever bring yourself to look on me as more than an agent, as a friend? I trust you do think of me as a friend?’
She blinked again but she had begun to shiver inside, the smell of him - the fresh, clean and altogether attractive smell of him - teasing her senses as she looked up into the strong masculine face staring down at her. He wasn’t Barney, but Barney had been lost to her since the day he had walked out of the small parish church in Newcastle with Pearl on his arm, she knew that. And Oliver . . . Oliver was handsome and worldly and intelligent, but more than that he was gentle and kind. At least, that was the way he had been with her. She’d heard stories of his reputation of course, from various sources, but she couldn’t equate them with the sober, considerate man she knew. But he
was
of the gentry. The word was loud in her ears and spoken in a strong northern accent, like her mother or Vera might have used. Such men only wanted girls like her for one reason.
And then, as though she had spoken her doubts out loud, Oliver said quietly, ‘I am twice your age, Josie, I know that, but I don’t consider that a disadvantage in a marriage, and . . . and I love you. I love you more than I had ever imagined it was possible to love; in fact, meeting you has made me realise I have never loved before.’
Marriage. He was talking of marriage. That, and the brief, almost shy hesitation before he had spoken of his love caught at her heartstrings. She began to tremble. This, coming on top of her recent triumph on the stage, was almost too much.
‘You haven’t given me an answer as to whether you could learn to look on me in a different light.’ He moved her closer to him, their joined hands resting on his chest. ‘I can promise you I will spend the rest of my life making you happy if you will give me a chance?’
There was nothing of the coquette in Josie, and now one of the attributes Oliver loved most about her came to the fore when she said, with touching and embarrassed honesty, ‘I . . . I think you’re very attractive but I never considered . . . I mean, I didn’t think you looked at me like that.’
‘From the first moment we met.’ It was tender, and Oliver comforted himself with the fact that he wasn’t actually lying. He
had
always wanted her, loved her, it had just been the prospect of proposing marriage that had been in question. But tonight had told him that if he didn’t snap her up, someone else would; she had been thrust into the glare of the public eye tonight in a big way and this was just the beginning. Gertie had told him in confidence that Josie had rebuffed any advances from the opposite sex in the past although her admirers had been manifold, but here in the capital she would be swept into a different life. No, he had to act now, stake his claim as it were. He had prevaricated long enough. And he could continue to mould and educate her far more effectively as a husband than he ever could as a mere agent. Marriage to him would be a great social and professional asset to her.
Oliver did not admit to himself here that there were definite advantages on both sides, or that, whatever his feelings for Josie - and they were ones of love and desire - it hadn’t been merely her working-class background which had caused him to hold his hand until this precise moment in their relationship. It wasn’t in him to acknowledge that he had waited to see how London had received her before he had staked his claim, nor that his pressing debts caused by a recent run of bad luck on the horses and in the gambling dens he frequented meant that a wife with the potential earning power of Josie Burns wasn’t to be sneezed at.
‘So, my dear?’ His face was straight now and very serious. ‘What is your answer? Will you marry me?’
She stared at him, her mind racing. She liked Oliver, she liked him very much, but could she love him as she loved Barney? Was it possible to love two men? And if it wasn’t, did she care for him enough to make him happy and make a marriage work? They had so much in common with regard to their professional lives and he was funny and warm and always extremely attentive, but marriage was made up of one main ingredient that was more important than all those things. Did she want to make love with him? For him to hold her close, to kiss her? Did she like him enough to lie with him?
She lowered her eyes for a moment and then suddenly, as a new thought came to her, her brain stopped its scrambling. How would she feel if she refused him and he fell in love with someone else? Unhappy. More than unhappy, devastated. Over the last months he had become a big part of her life, had woven himself into her affections and her heart, and she hadn’t fully realised it till now. And he was handsome and strong, wholesome. And she had to forget that other love - it could never be and she had always known it. But if she refused Oliver she might never meet anyone else she liked so much. No, loved. The emotion she was feeling was stronger than just liking.